


Working My Way Back to You

by dadsBBQparty



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Don't copy to another site, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 08:49:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21425479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dadsBBQparty/pseuds/dadsBBQparty
Summary: Eddie’s leaning his head against his hand, watching through the bus window as they go block by block, door by door. The setting sun hits him just right, illuminating his dark hair. Eddie briefly looks over at him, his stern eyes relaxing for just a brief second before focusing back on the landscape. It’s just a Tuesday night- perhaps a Tuesday like every other for the rest of the losers, but not for them. Richie watches, holding back the urge to wrap his arms around him.Eddie reaches out blindly with his free hand and takes Richie’s hand. He squeezes it and lets go, leaving Richie to gawk.-Eddie and Richie reminisce on moments in their friendship.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 5
Kudos: 41





	Working My Way Back to You

Eddie’s leaning his head against his hand, watching through the bus window as they go block by block, door by door. The setting sun hits him just right, illuminating his dark hair. Eddie briefly looks over at him, his stern eyes relaxing for just a brief second before focusing back on the landscape. It’s just a Tuesday night- perhaps a Tuesday like every other for the rest of the losers, but not for them. Richie watches, holding back the urge to wrap his arms around him. 

Eddie reaches out blindly with his free hand and takes Richie’s hand. He squeezes it and lets go, leaving Richie to gawk. 

-

“Do you really think that the Russians are… are going to nuke us, Eddie?” Bill asks incredulously. “You think they’re going to nuke D-Derry?” 

Richie looks up from his scribbles. Scribbles of the atomic mushroom, the one they saw earlier in class. He was trying to show Stan, who wasn’t fortunate enough to be in the same class as them. The class with nuclear explosions. His brow purses as he sees the look on Eddie’s face. It’s a look all of them know. Just pure fear. 

“Bill, are you going to tell me that they wouldn’t nuke Derry?” he quips back, glancing around the room. It’s just the four of them. Richie and Stan sitting on the floor as Richie draws, Bill sitting on his bed, Eddie pacing around the room. “We don’t know where they’re going to drop a bomb. We can never be too careful. You realize that right? Someone told me if they drop it in New York, even, we can get sick too. Did you know that? The atoms- the atoms, they’ll kill you. He says that sometimes if someone’s around something that had radioactivity, they can die, like, ten years later because of it.”

“Who was telling you that?” Richie speaks up. 

“Dan!” Eddie yells back. 

“Why is Dan telling you that?” Richie asks. He knows how this goes. A kid plants an idea into Eddie. They think it’ll be funny, but it’s not funny. It’s not funny to see how nervous Eddie gets about these stupid things. Richie hates it. He hates when Eddie gets this worked up. 

“Because it’s the truth, Richie!”

“What is knowing going to do?” Stan asks. “Do you have a bomb shelter built?”

“Richie, we need to build a bomb shelter,” Eddie gasps. Richie shakes his head quickly, wondering why the responsibility fell on him and not the rest of the group. He quickly glares at Stan, who’s correcting his drawing from what he’s seen on TV.

“We’re not building a bomb shelter, Eddie,” Richie replies. 

“I saw one of those on TV once with my mom,” Bill tells him. “I think I’d rather be dead than live in one of those.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of pointless trying to plan it all,” Stan says. “Eddie, stop getting all worked up. You’re not solving anything.”

“Not solving anything?” Eddie mimics. “Not solving anything? I-” 

“Eddie,” Richie says. The boy looks over at him, his lips pursed. “Eddie, my love, you just have to duck and cover, right?” 

Bill shook his head quickly. “That doesn’t-” Richie threw the pencil at him hard enough to shut him up. “Fuck- Fucker, what was that for?”

“You’re gonna be absolutely fine if you just duck and cover,” Richie explains, trying to gesture out a desk and someone hiding underneath it very, very smoothly with his hands. Eddie doesn’t seem to like it much. His eyes narrowed at the sight, trying to figure out what he was doing. “And I’ll be right there with you, so even if these two shitheads don’t do anything, you’ll have me.” 

“I don’t think I’d like being one of the only people left alive with the boy who hasn’t figured out shampoo,” Eddie replies, finally sitting down next to Bill. Richie sighs with relief, seeing that he’s calm enough to sit down. He wants to reply with something along the lines of ‘your mom didn’t have any issue with it and the population’s still strong’, but he doesn’t want to spiral the conversation even further. “But Richie, I thought that didn’t work-”

“It works, Eds!” Richie says quickly, and Bill’s finally starting to understand why he’s saying this. “I read it in my books. I have them in my room if you want to check them out.” They’re not real. Eddie never wants to look at those books. Eddie only likes to read his books if there are stupid superheroes, and Richie doesn’t even particularly like those books, but he likes that Eddie likes them so much, and that’s another story for another day. “They said that it turns out that it really does work. There was some testing done in, like, Area 51, and they realized it works.”

“So we wouldn’t die…” Eddie mutters. 

“Nope, you’ll still be stuck with me. Dan’s just full of shit. I tell you not to listen to him.” 

Eddie grins a little bit at that comment. He nods his head. He reaches out for some sort of physical confirmation, setting his hand on Bill’s. Richie knows what that means. It means ‘I think I’m okay. I need you to remind me.’ Bill doesn’t know that though. Richie thinks he’s the only one who really understands it. 

“So anyway, did any of you start that assignment due on Friday?” Stan asks. He’s met with a chorus of raspberries from Richie and Eddie. Neither of them even wanted to remember that there was an assignment due Friday. “Thanks, guys,” Stan replies. 

-

Eddie looks at Richie. He looks at Richie like he’s an entire galaxy that only he’s been allowed to gaze at. He wonders if Richie has really noticed the love in his eyes. He’s tried to hide it through jeers and complaints, but they’ve only become his form of affection. They no longer hold the same power they did when he was thirteen, although that’s implying they had meaning even then. 

Richie smiles at him, and Eddie’s stuck in their world. It’s the world that circles Richie Tozier. He’s lucky enough to be able to land on it.

He feels the stars hitting him as Richie’s knee brushes against his. He sees planets as Richie raves on about the neon lights. He sees a sun in the way the lights bounce off the glow of his cheeks. Richie’s neon galaxy. 

Richie’s smile. The way the blue neon lights nearly turn his lips, painted golden, into a silver. The golden becomes overbearing as he steps under the yellow lights. Eddie’s captivated, and Richie’s aware. Eddie realizes he’s always aware. Richie might not have noticed that he knew, but he always did. He always will. 

The words I love you are at the tip of his tongue. He’s waiting for Richie to steal them from him. 

-

“Richie, you can’t possibly think of going out looking like that,” Eddie complains as he watches Richie’s hand grab the handle of the door to their apartment, prepared to disappear into night. “You look like garbage.” 

Richie turned around. He looked exactly the same as he always does, save for the thick coat that Eddie forced him to wear before he walked outside into the harsh New York winter. 

“Like what?” 

“Like that.” 

“This is how I always dress,” Richie says. 

“And you look like every other damn comedian. Nothing unique about you,” Eddie chastises, gesturing for Richie to walk over to him. He knows that Richie’s not going to be late to anything. He always shows up to these things early. Smoke weed, have a few shots. Just like every other comedian. 

Eddie remembers when Richie turned twenty-one. The only thing exciting about it must have been that he didn’t have to think about getting caught anymore. Not that he ever did. Not like Eddie thought about it. 

But that’s in the past now. Eddie doesn’t mind keeping him from slipping in a few drinks. He doesn’t mind keeping Richie sober for just a while longer. 

Richie obediently walks up to him. That’s how it always is, yet Eddie never senses resentment from him. It almost feels like a silent relief. A silent relief that Eddie will handle this.

“What’s up?” he asks. 

“Let me do your stage makeup,” Eddie says softly. 

“I’ll look ridiculous,” Richie argues. It sounds more like he has to say it, not that he really wants to. More of just a quick comment than an actual complaint. 

“Everyone in this damn city looks ridiculous,” Eddie says as he walks Richie down the hall to the bathroom. 

It’s weird, Eddie sometimes thinks. Weird that they’re twenty-two and still spend every day together. What’s weirder is when they’re not together. It’s weirder on the days that Richie goes to visit family. A family that have moved far away from Derry. It’s weird walking the empty halls when Richie’s doing a showcase in Chicago that Eddie couldn’t get off work to go to. 

Eddie knows other people must think, looking in on their relationship, that they’re weird. That’s all they are, really. Just losers who have never been able to be apart from each other. Never _wanted_ to be apart from each other. Eddie really hopes they never are. 

He wonders if Richie knows. He wonders if Richie knows how he really feels about him. He feels as though Richie would never _hate_ him if he knew. Fuck, he would have hated him the first year they lived together. The time Eddie had to snake the drain. If Richie could have hated him, it would have been at that moment. Instead, Richie chose to laugh. He chose to make Eddie laugh alongside him, despite that he wanted to seethe with rage. No, Richie would never hate him. Richie could never hate him. But he wonders if Richie could ever reciprocate his feelings. 

“You just want an excuse to dress me up,” Richie laughs. Eddie forces back a smile. 

“You could have easily just said no, asshole,” Eddie mutters as he pulls out his makeup container from the linen closet. He sets it down on the stand beside the sink, pulling out a few things.

“Eds, and spoil this important moment for you?” Richie says. His hand reaches for something, and Eddie can see the hesitation in his movement. He knows this is something that Richie wouldn’t have been caught dead near in Derry. He would have cracked a joke in private to Eddie. Probably would have jokingly called him a gay slur back in Derry. Eddie would have secretly agreed and called him that right back. He knows how different this is. How much they’ve changed. “Will you make me all pretty? Do my hair into nice little curls?”

“I’m not a miracle worker. We get what we get,” Eddie replies, licking his lips to hold back a small laugh before he begins to paint Richie’s face. 

-

Whenever Eddie touches him, his skin is hot. It always has been. A pleasant warm, one that can shield him from the rest of the world. 

The moonlight kisses Eddie's cheeks in ways that Richie envies. The ways that highlight everything Richie adores about his face. His cheekbones, his brows. He wonders if his kisses could ever do justice quite like this. 

No one is like Eddie. No one laughs like Eddie. No one smiles like Eddie. No one jokes like Eddie. 

He continues to watch him. He continues to admire how Eddie carries himself in the night. He’s small against him, yet he feels so much bigger. His presence is so large in Richie’s life, and it continues to grow. 

-

He’s practiced this in the mirror thousands of times. He’s imagined the reactions of not just Eddie, but all of the losers. He’s imagined every scenario. 

His heart tightens at the scenario where Eddie leaves. When the rest of the losers decide to isolate him. 

He’s terrified. To live a life without them feels as though he wouldn’t be living a life. 

He hears the sink turn off in the kitchen. 

“Richie?” Eddie calls. “What’s the plan for dinner tonight?” 

Richie feels his throat tightening. He doesn’t know if he can do it. He’s been imagining this moment since they were young. Does it have to be now? Would it be okay to hide for a few more years? Pretend nothing is weird about him. He’s just a normal guy, a normal guy who’s been rooming with his childhood friend for years and years. 

“I don’t know,” Richie yells back.

“Take out?” 

“Don’t know.” 

“Dammit, Richie, just get over here. I’m not playing a shouting game with you, as much as I would love to be evicted.” 

So, his legs carry him out there. 

They carry him to the kitchen. 

He gazes at Eddie. Eddie, who time has been kind to. Eddie, the man who seems to look better with every passing day. They’re only twenty-six, but he can see the man that Eddie will become. It makes his mouth dry. It makes his mouth dry to know that he’ll only continue to improve with each passing day, and Richie will have to watch. 

“You look sick, Trashmouth,” Eddie says, drying off a plate with a towel. “Did you get your flu shot?”

“Yes, I got my flu shot, mother,” Richie quips back, less energy than usual. Eddie’s eyes narrow. “Probably got sick from your mom last night. Women, can’t trust them when they say they’re clean.”

“Beep beep, Richie, what the fuck?” Eddie replies, and Richie can see a concerned scowl appear on his stern face. “Tell me what’s bothering you. You’re stressing me out.” 

It’s at the tip of his tongue. Richie stands in the doorway speechless. Eddie’s gaze only strengthens, until he’s suffocating. 

“Richie?” Eddie asks, concern dripping from his tongue. It makes Richie sick. It makes him sick to imagine that Eddie has to be concerned about someone like him. 

“Eddie,” Richie says, his voice hoarse. Eddie’s set everything back down in the sink, walking over to him. Richie wants to back away, but he can’t make himself. “Eddie.”

“Richie,” Eddie says. He’s reaching out to take his hand. Richie can see what he’s going to do. He’s going to wash his hand clean afterwards. He can feel the grip tighten, and he knows that means that he’s only going to use more soap. He’s going to move before he can finish disinfecting everything that he’s touched. 

“Eddie, I’m gay,” Richie blurts, and he can feel himself spinning. He wishes he was hidden.

He feels Eddie’s arms around him. He’s holding him closer, his body pressed against his. Richie gasps, feeling his full head of hair brushing under his chin. Reluctantly, he hugs him back. His movements are weak and uncertain, but Eddie’s certainty holds him tighter. 

“Trashmouth, I love you,” Eddie says softly. “You're so fucking stupid for even assuming I wouldn't be proud of you for telling me this.” 

Richie looks down at him, and Eddie’s looking up. He’s looking with the smile that he’s looked at him with for all these years. The one he was scared he’d never see again. 

“Thank you,” Richie whispers back. He can feel Eddie’s hand on the side of his face.

Their lips are pressed against each other. Locked tightly. 

Richie isn’t sure which one of them initiated it, but he knows that Eddie isn’t disgusted by him. He can feel the way Eddie cups his face, and the way that Eddie moves his face to keep up with him. He can feel the heat coming from Eddie’s body as he pushes him against the counter. 

He can feel how safe Eddie feels against him. 

-

Eddie glances down at his hand, reveling in the shine that comes off of his finger. The weight of the ring on his hand and the security of knowing that it’s supposed to be there. 

Richie’s hand is glowing with his ring as Eddie moves his hand away from his. He wants to freeze time and stay in this moment for the rest of his life. Stay in the moment where they both wear their shining, new rings to represent their glistening old love. 

Eddie can’t imagine a sight more beautiful than to see Richie in front of him. He wonders if this is what it's like for Richie to put on his glasses in the morning. To see his life so clearly and so suddenly. 

A sight more beautiful than the future he knows he’ll continue to have with him. 

-

His mother wouldn’t be happy if she knew he was out sledding in the snow. He knows it’s dangerous, and he knows that at the bottom of the hill, there could be a trap. What would she do if she caught him here? He'd be a deadman, if the snow and the cold and the other screaming children don't kill him. 

Bill’s parents were okay with it. Bill’s parents said they could go out. 

And there was Bill at the bottom of the hill. Talking with another boy.

“Eddie, get down here!” 

Eddie, sitting at the top of the massive hill in his purple sled, frowned at the bottom of the hill, shaking his head. He could see Bill huff from this distance, where the snow is packed down so tightly it becomes like ice. He wonders how he’s going to climb back up the hill. How they’ll get home. 

“Get down here!” Bill yells again. 

Eddie’s shaking his head again, but then he’s moving. He’s moving down the hill and screaming, and it doesn’t take him very long to realize that he’s been pushed. His mittened hands grip the edges of the sled as tightly as he can, feeling a panic grow in his chest. 

The boy Bill was talking to tried to move out of the way and fell back down on the icy snow, and Eddie knew what was going to happen. He closed his eyes and braced for it. 

The impact was hard, and soon, they were both laying with their backs on the snow. Eddie swallowed a sob while Bill tried to run over to them, sliding back on the ice as well. 

He looks over in his thick snowsuit, his eyes freezing with the moisture forming at the corners, and all he sees are glasses with something shaped like a body attached to them. 

He knows this boy. He was in the classroom next to his. 

“I’m Richie,” he says, his voice wavering, waving a hand against the snow. Eddie notices he doesn’t have gloves on. He makes a mental note of how irresponsible that is. 

“... I'm Eddie,” he says pathetically behind his snowgear.

Richie is the first one to stand up. He’s finding balance, although it must be easier with him since he doesn’t have fifty pounds of snowgear covering his body. Just a jacket and ripped up snowpants. 

He starts laughing, and Eddie, uncertain of what is happening, begins to laugh too. 

“You looked so silly coming down,” Richie says as he reaches out to help Eddie stand back up. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” Eddie says under his breath, taking Richie’s offer. He grabs his gloved hand and begins to pull him up. Soon, they’re both standing upright, and Eddie's staring at him like he's never seen before. 

"You okay? You don't look okay," Richie says. 

"You look cold," Eddie says. "You're going to freeze…" 

"Only a baby would freeze in the cold like this," Richie declares. Eddie scoffs as he takes off his own scarf, looking down at Richie's red, chapped hands. This is how people get frost bite. He doesn't want Richie to lose his fingers. He grabs his hands and begins to wrap the scarf around them tightly without even asking. He can overhear Bill sighing, but Richie's staring. He's staring dumbfounded behind his coke bottle classed. 

“Richie’s coming to my eighth birthday party too, Eddie,” Bill says, his energy level lowering. 

"Okay, so you can give me my scarf back when you come to the party," Eddie says. His cheeks are warm, and he's not sure why they're heating up in this extreme cold. 

Richie beams proudly, and Eddie smiles back. It’s contagious really. “I'll give it back to you,” he says happily. Eddie sees the face behind the glasses shining at him, and he comes to one conclusion. This must be what it’s like to meet a prince in a fairytale.

This must be what a prince is like. Confident, goofy, and already there to help you. Bill likes him too.

“Richie!” a girl yells at the top of the hill. “Mom says you gotta come home now!” 

Eddie glances over at his new found friend, watching the excitement fade as he realizes he has to leave his new friend. 

“See you two,” he says sadly as he begins to run the opposite direction, and Eddie watches as his sister runs down the hill to try and catch him. 

A moment of silence passes between him and Bill, before Eddie announces the conclusion he’s come to.

“I’m going to marry him someday.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! :) let me know what you think!!!


End file.
